'Disorganized' Rust armorer mixed live bullets up with blanks, prosecutors tell manslaughter trial of cinematographer shot dead by Alec Baldwin

Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed had live ammunition mixed with dummy rounds on set, prosecutors told the jury in her manslaughter trial on Thursday.

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, 25, has pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence. If found guilty, she could be sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $5,000.

Halyna Hutchins, 42, died in 2021 after Gutierrez-Reed mistakenly loaded a live round into a reproduction Colt .45 revolver that Baldwin was rehearsing with on the movie set outside Santa Fe. Director Joel Souza was also injured in the shooting.

Five other live rounds were later found on the set by investigators. 

Gutierrez-Reed sat in court wearing a gray blazer and white top looking impassive as District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer read out the charges to the jury. Opening statements were delayed on Thursday due to a juror's tardiness.

'We believe that it was the negligent acts and failures of the defendant that resulted in both the acts that contributed to Miss Hutchins' death and the live rounds being brought onto the set,' prosecutor Jason Lewis said on in the state's opening remarks.

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, 25, has entered a New Mexico courtroom to face trial for the 2021 death of a cinematographer fatally shot by Alec Baldwin during a rehearsal

Gutierrez-Reed had a live round mixed with with dummy ones on set, prosecutors told the jury in her manslaughter trial on Thursday.

Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on the Western movie Rust, was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins (pictured) during a rehearsal outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the gun went off, killing her

A picture of the weapon used in the fatal shooting on set was shown in court on Thursday

Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys have previously claimed that live rounds arrived on set from an Albuquerque-based supplier of dummy rounds. 

On Thursday they put the fault on Baldwin, saying the actor 'violated basic gun safety rules' as he rushed to finish filming, and did not do training that Gutierrez had requested.

Defense attorney Jason Bowles said: ‘This scene didn't require him to draw that weapon. Instead for whatever reason Mr Baldwin pulled it out and it ends up being pointed right at Miss Hutchins and Mr Souza.’

According to Bowles, Baldwin ‘controlled the set’ as he was the lead actor and one of the producers. By pointing a gun at another person, Baldwin ‘violated some of the most basic gun safety rules you can ever learn’, Bowles said.

Prosecutor Lewis, on the state's part, said that it was a ‘fairly chaotic’ day when the shooting happened, as the evening before a group of camera operations who had ‘some concerns about safety issues on set sent an email to the production team saying they were going to be quitting.’

The next day the producers decided to ‘push ahead with filming anyway and use less camera equipment’, as they tried to ‘improvise and make do with what they had’.

‘During lunch hour Miss Gutierrez took the gun from Mr Baldwin and she took it back to the safe, the gun safe that was loaded on a prop cart,' the prosecutor told the jury.

‘Once lunch was over, production decided they wanted to continue working inside the church.  At this point they weren’t filming anything. They were doing blocking, that is in film terms what you do before you get to rehearsal, a very rough rehearsal where the lighting director, camera operator are trying to get things so they can move into a rehearsal.

Alec Baldwin said he had accidentally killed Hutchins and denies pulling the trigger. The jury was shown raw footage from the filmmaking process of Baldwin practicing drawing a gun while sitting on a church pew

One of the prosecution's evidence photos is seen above. Authorities found six rounds of ammunition on the movie set in locations that included a box, a gun belt and a bandolier worn by Baldwin

Prosecutors tried to portray Gutierrez as negligent and unorganized. They showed the above image to the jury on Thursday

Lewis said that several witnesses and ‘one in particular’ will say that ‘for purposes of blocking Mr Baldwin could have been using a stick, a rubber gun, anything that would allow him to mimic a gun.'

During the morning Gutierrez had only put five rounds in the gun Baldwin was using but for the afternoon shooting she put a sixth bullet in there, Lewis said. She took it to the church and handed it to First Assistant Director Dave Halls.

They both did a ‘sloppy and incomplete safety check of the gun, the dummy rounds were not removed and rattled,' which would have told them what kinds of rounds were in the gun.

Lewis added: ‘Instead she cracked open the gun and partially spun the cylinder to show Mr Halls a few of the rounds. They were not removed from the gun and they were not all checked.

‘After the incident happened and when Miss Gutierrez was being interviewed she stated when she removed the gun from the safe she didn’t recheck the ammunition. When she put the sixth bullet in she didn’t check the rounds at that time either.

‘Witnesses will testify when the defendant pulled the gun out of the safe, what she should have done was open the gun and checked each and every round. Then when she took it to the church she should have done a second complete ammo check with Mr Halls. This double redundancy is what helps prevent the kind of incident that occurred to Miss Huchins from happening.'

The set of Rust in New Mexico is seen in an image shown to the jury

'We believe that it was the negligent acts and failures of the defendant that resulted in both the acts that contributed to Miss Hutchins' death and the live rounds being brought onto the set,' prosecutor Jason Lewis said

Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys have previously claimed that live rounds arrived on set from an Albuquerque-based supplier of dummy rounds

Lewis said that Gutierrez handed the gun to Halls, exited the church and Halls handed it to Baldwin.

‘Mr Baldwin was sitting on that church pew practicing how he would hold the gun. As Mr B was manipulating the firearm he caused it to discharge and that unfortunately sent a projectile flying directly at Miss Hutchins,' the prosecutor told the court.

‘(It) shot completely through Miss Hutchins and struck the film’s director Joel Souza in the shoulder’.

Paramedics on set tried to save Hutchins but because of the remote location it took some time for additional help to arrive. Hutchins was airlifted to the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque but she did.

As Lewis said this, Gutierrez-Reed looked uncomfortable and closed her eyes.

Lewis said: ‘By failing to make those vital safety checks the defendant acted negligently and without due caution. The decisions she made that day contributed to Miss Hutchins’ death’.

Describing the allegations of tampering with evidence, Lewis said that on the day Hutchins was killed, Gutierrez-Reed was in her hotel room when another crew member came to check on her.

Baldwin also has pleaded not guilty to an involuntary manslaughter charge in a separate case 

Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was seen arriving in court Wednesday as a jury was selected for her trial of the 2021 death of a cinematographer who was shot by Alec Baldwin

The gun Baldwin used to shoot Hutchins supplied by the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed (pictured)

Gutierrez-Reed allegedly passed the crew member a bag of cocaine and asked her to ‘hang on to it for her’.

The crew member disposed of it when she left the room and realized what it was but Gutierrez-Reed sent her several texts over the next several weeks asking her to ‘return her stuff

Judge Marlowe Summer had previously told the panel of seven men and five women that they should wear layers of clothing in court and apologized for the cold temperature. She also told the jury ‘do not miss one word’ of testimony and to raise any issues immediately. 

Jurors were chosen from a pool of 70 residents from the Santa Fe area that included non-English speakers, a welder, a teacher, a graduate student and a mother who provides for six children. Prosecutors asked potential jurors about their exposure to intensive media coverage and social media chatter about the case. 

Baldwin also has pleaded not guilty to an involuntary manslaughter charge in a separate case. 

Gutierrez-Reed, the stepdaughter of renowned sharpshooter and weapons consultant Thell Reed, was 24 at the time of Hutchins’ death. Rust was her second assignment as an armorer in a feature film. 

Authorities found six rounds of ammunition on the movie set in locations that included a box, a gun belt and a bandolier worn by Baldwin. Baldwin has said he assumed the gun only had rounds that couldn’t be fired.

Baldwin is seen in the parking lot outside the Santa Fe County Sherriff's office

Gutierrez-Reed, the stepdaughter of renowned sharpshooter and weapons consultant Thell Reed, was 24 at the time of Hutchins’ death

Exclusive DailyMail.com photos showed Gutierrez-Reed for the first time after the shooting as she paced outside her home

Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys say she’s unfairly been scapegoated. They contend live rounds arrived on set from an Albuquerque-based supplier of dummy rounds. 

They also pointed to a broader atmosphere of safety failures uncovered during an investigation by state workplace safety inspectors that go beyond Gutierrez-Reed.

Additionally, Gutierrez-Reed is accused in another case of carrying a gun into a bar in downtown Santa Fe in violation of state law. 

Her attorneys say that charge has been used to try to pressure Gutierrez-Reed into a false confession about the handling of live ammunition on the Rust set. 

More than 40 people are listed as witnesses for the trial set to run through March 6. 

Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on Rust, was indicted in January on an involuntary manslaughter charge.

He has said he pulled back the gun’s hammer — not the trigger — and the weapon fired.